1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to call forwarding methods. The present invention particularly relates to a remote routing of voice calls after an execution of a call forwarding method involving a telematic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In FIG. 1, an exemplary operation of a prior art system involving telecommunication devices in the form of a business phone 10, a wireless network 20, and a portable phone 30 as well as a telematic device in the form of an embedded vehicle phone 40 within a vehicle 41. Portable phone 30 and the embedded vehicle phone 40 are owned by a subscriber. Vehicle phone 40 includes a conventional Vehicle Communication Unit (“VCU”) operable to wake up at regular intervals in order to receive data calls. Additionally, vehicle phone 40 answers each in-coming call, voice or data, when an ignition of vehicle 41 is on or when the VCU is awake in a DRx cycle.
As known in the art, the wireless network 20 attempts to route a voice call from a caller of the business phone 10 to the portable phone 30 as symbolized by the in-coming rings and the system rings. In response to the in-coming rings, a call forwarding module 21 of the wireless network 20 as shown in FIG. 2 implements a known call forwarding method as represented by a flowchart 50 as shown in FIG. 3. Specifically, call forwarding module 21 establishes a call state of the voice call during a stage S54 of the flowchart 50 upon a detection of the in-coming rings during a stage S52 of flowchart 50. Thereafter, call forward module 21 transfers the voice call to a voice mail module 22 of wireless network 20 during a stage S66 of the flowchart 50 when wireless network 20 ascertains portable phone 30 is currently in use by the subscriber (or another user) during a stage S56 of flowchart 50.
Otherwise, call forwarding module 21 monitors the system rings provided to portable phone 30 by wireless network 20 during a stage S58 of flowchart 50 whereby call forwarding module 21 can take one of two actions. The first action is to terminate the call state of the voice call during a stage S68 of flowchart 50 and return to stage S52 when call forwarding module 21 ascertains during a stage S60 of flowchart 50 that the subscriber (or another user) answered the system rings within a prescribed period X. The second action is to provide and monitor call forward rings to vehicle phone 40 during a stage S62 of flowchart 50 when the call forwarding module 21 ascertains during stage S60 that the subscriber (or another user) failed to answer the system rings within a prescribed period X.
The vehicle phone 40 will answer the call forward rings from call forwarding module 21 when the ignition of vehicle 41 is on or when the VCU is awake in a DRx cycle. Accordingly, in the case of the second action, call forwarding module 21 will terminate the call state of the voice call during stage S68 and return to stage S52 when call forwarding module 21 ascertains during stage S64 that vehicle phone 40 answered the call forward rings within a prescribed period Y (i.e., the ignition of the vehicle 41 is on or the VCU is awake in a DRx cycle). Otherwise, call forwarding module 21 will transfer the voice call to voice mail module 22 and return to stage S52.
Upon an answering of the call forward rings, the vehicle phone 40 provides fake rings for the subscriber as well as associated ring back tones for the caller. As such, the subscriber (or another user) can answer the fake rings if present within the vehicle 41. A drawback to this prior art scenario is the termination of the call state by the call forwarding module 21 during stage S68 prohibits the call forwarding module 40 from transferring the voice call to voice mail module 22 upon a failure of the subscriber (or another uses) to answer the fake rings. The present invention addresses this drawback.